In this Trinity Forum Conversation, author Lanta Davis, along with special guest host and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Jessica Hooten Wilson, delve into the power of imagination and its role in our spiritual formation. The discussion centers on Davis's book Becoming by Beholding, which explores Christian imagination through art, literature, and historical practices.
These friends and scholars discuss the transformative potential of engaging with sacred art, the virtues, and traditional practices like Lectio Divina:
"In Jesus's parables ... He's constantly showing us that there's more hidden behind the surface than we think. The mustard seed is not just a mustard seed. Yeast is not just yeast ... Jesus shows us heavenly meanings ... This is what the incarnation helps us understand, that the divine is not just up above. It's all around us. It's here and now. That when God became matter, all the material world changed because of it."We hope this conversation will resonate with you as you explore the good, the true, and the beautiful in your own corner of creation.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation recorded in March 2025. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Lanta Davis and Jessica Hooten Wilson.
Episode Outline
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
04:47 Exploring the Power of Imagination
05:37 The Concept of Becoming by Beholding
07:46 Living in an Enchanted World
10:53 Tradition and the Logic of Eternity
13:49 Orthodoxy, Orthopraxy, and Orthopathy
17:22 The Role of Icons and Medieval Bestiaries
23:25 Lectio Divina and Imaginative Prayer
27:20 Virtues and Vices: A Deeper Look
30:38 Understanding Virtue and Its Historical Context
31:37 The Practicality of Virtue Personifications
32:32 Teaching Virtues in Everyday Life
33:50 Exploring Courage Through Art
36:30 Incorporating Virtue in Contemporary Art
38:15 Imagination and Its Role in Understanding Reality
45:28 Scripture, Culture, and the Fruits of the Spirit
49:49 Global Christian Art and Imagination
51:34 Resources for Teaching and Engaging with Art
54:46 Travel and Exploration of Christian Art
56:33 Desire, Trust, and Identity in Modern Culture
59:39 The Last Word with Lanta Davis
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Becoming by Beholding, by Lanta Davis
Jessica Hooten Wilson
Ralph C. Wood
In the Beauty of Holiness, by David Lyle Jeffrey
Luke Ferriter
“Hurrahing in Harvest”, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Four Quartets, by T. S. Eliot
Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton
Flannery O’Connor
Grace Hammond
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books, by Karen Swallow Prior
Alan Noble
A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor
Dorothy Sayers
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
James K.A. Smith
Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
John Donne
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
Spirit and Imagination: Reflections from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Strangest Story in the World, by G.K. Chesterton
Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters, focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’ll focus on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
In this episode, our guides are modern hymn writers Keith and Kristyn Getty. Back in 2019, we hosted a live Evening Conversation in which they explored the ways in which music can speak to our spiritual hunger and shape our sense of beauty, truth, and purpose:
We hope this conversation will resonate with you as you explore the good, the true, and the beautiful in your own corner of creation.
If it does, please consider joining the Trinity Forum community as a member, at ttf.org. You can find the full video of this conversation there too. And while you’re here, please subscribe to this podcast on your chosen platform.
Learn more about the Gettys.
Watch our Evening Conversation.
Authors, artists, and books mentioned in the conversation:
Peter Kreeft
The Republic, by Plato
Damon of Athens
Sing: How Worship Transforms your Life, Family, and Church, by Keith and Kristyn Getty
Unwearied Praises: Exploring Christian Faith Through Classic Hymns, by Dr. Jeff Greenman
The Pedagogy of Praise, by Dr. Jeff Greenman
John Lennox
Lucy Shaw
Eugene Peters
J.I. Packer
Martin Luther
Leonard Bernstein
Amy Carmichael
Cecil Frances Alexander
Os Guinness
Charles Spurgeon
Lloyd Jones
D.L. Moody
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Related Conversations:
Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters, focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’ll focus on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
In this episode, our focus is Jane Austen, and our guide is Karen Swallow Prior, one of our Trinity Forum Senior Fellows.
Karen explores the faith-informed perspective on virtue that Austen’s novels reflect:
Jane Austen’s world and concerns seem distant from ours. Yet across the centuries, she illuminates the importance of the seemingly mundane, and the path towards repaired and rightly ordered relationships.
If this work resonates with you, consider joining the Trinity Forum community as a member, at ttf.org. This episode is drawn from an online conversation held in 2021. You can find the full video of this conversation here. And while you’re here, please subscribe to this podcast.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman
Praying with Jane, by Rachel Dodge
Alasdair MacIntyre
William Shakespeare
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters, focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’ll focus on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Today’s guide is the author and professor Diana Glyer. She’ll be talking about the lives and work of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their beloved community known as the Inklings.
In this episode drawn from an online conversation held in February of 2021, Diana focuses on how creativity thrives within small clusters of like-hearted people. We hope you enjoy reflecting on the potential of your own friendships and communities to be culture-shaping.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, by Diana Glyer
Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, by Diana Glyer
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Williams
Shakespeare
Hugo Dyson
Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Friendship, by Cicero
The Golden Key, by George MacDonald
The Oracle of the Dog, by G.K. Chesterton
The Lost Tools of Learning, by Dorothy Sayers
Related Conversations:
Suffering, Friendship, and Courage: What Lewis & Tolkien Teach Us About Resilience & Imagination, an Online Conversation with Joe Loconte
Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters, focuses on the places where art, creation, and Creator meet to bring restoration and life into a world fatigued by division, brokenness, and hurt. From Jazz to Jane Austen and between, this season we’ll be focusing on the ways the arts answer the questions of what can enrich, refresh, and challenge our inner lives—and hand us the keys to the Good Life from within the heart.
How should we live faithfully within a world created to be good and beautiful, and yet everywhere is marred by ugliness and injustice?
Jazz vocalist and composer Ruth Naomi Floyd joins our podcast to discuss the intersection of music, creativity, and justice, and to help us think deeply about our role in repairing, re-envisioning, and creating new places of beauty, justice, and flourishing:
We know that art shapes and reshapes us and that it’s there in the cross of Jesus, I believe, where beauty and violence collided and beauty won. And so that act of loving someone…purposely trying to love someone, especially those that seem or are viewed or deemed unlovable, is…directly connected and intrinsically connected to our art making.We hope you enjoy and are encouraged by Floyd’s artistic journey, how she finds beauty in the midst of suffering, and her vision for the role of love in creativity.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2021. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Ruth Naomi Floyd.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Frederick Douglass Jazz Works
It Was Good, Making Music to the Glory of God, by Ruth Naomi Floyd
The Problem of Good, by Ruth Naomi Floyd
Dr. John Nunez
Toni Morrison
Martin Luther King Jr.
Vincent van Gogh
Hans Christian Andersen
Miles Davis
Francis Schaeffer
Joshua Stamper
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Letters from Vincent van Gogh
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King Jr.
Revelation, by Flannery O’Connor
Bulletins from Immortality, by Emily Dickinson
Related Conversations:
A New Year With The Word with Malcolm Guite
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
In this episode we’re joined by theologian and bestselling author Miroslav Volf of Yale Divinity School. His latest book is The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others is Making Us Worse.
The question he explores is one that relates to all of us: how can we find a way to strive for excellence, rather than for superiority over those around us?
Finding new insights in familiar Biblical passages and the Christian tradition, he’ll help us to defy our culture of merciless ambition:
Let’s dare trust in the God who comes down to serve those who are a refuse of society. And let’s trust in that unconditional love of God that takes those of us who are nothing and places us to become sharers of the community of those who are God’s beloved children.
This episode is drawn from an online conversation held in 2025. It’ll give you a sense of what the Trinity Forum is about: a community of people working to keep the Christian intellectual tradition alive, and to nurture new growth in it in our time, for the renewal of our culture.
If that resonates with you, please join the Trinity Forum as a member at ttf.org. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
This conversation is on the practical wisdom the Christian tradition offers for something that affects all of us: matters of life and death. Dr. Lydia Dugdale will be our guide.
Lydia has applied practices from this faith tradition in her daily work with patients and families as a physician, professor and medical ethicist in New York City. She draws deeply from it in her book The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom – which she wrote for her patients, and those who love them:
We hope this conversation helps paint a picture of what it means to live as a Christian on the road of life, where death is not the end, but a stop along the way to eternity.
This podcast was recorded with a live audience at a Trinity Forum evening conversation in Nashville in 2025. It’ll give you a good sense of what the Trinity Forum is about: a community of people working to keep the Christian intellectual tradition alive, to nurture new growth in it for society’s renewal, and to make it available to all.
Related Conversations:
Being, Living, and Dying Well, an Online Conversation with Lydia Dugdale
Faith, Health, and Healing, an Evening Conversation with Farr Curlin and Daniel Sulmasy
In this conversation, author Ross Douthat draws from the tradition to tackle a foundational question: Why believe?
Amid evidence that America’s long trend of secularization has leveled off, a perception of the limits of a strictly materialist worldview, and growing dissatisfaction with “do it yourself” approaches to spirituality, what does traditional faith uniquely offer those seeking truth in our time?
New York Times columnist and author Ross Douthat joins us for this conversation, making the case for Christianity and rejecting atheism, all through the lens of reason:
We hope this conversation provides a look at faith from a fresh angle, and encourages you in practicing traditional faith as an answer to the search for truth in our time.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in February 2025. Watch the recording here.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Ross Douthat for The New York Times
The Deep Places: A memoir of Illness and Discovery
The Decadent Society to Change the Church
To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism
Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
Bethel McGrew, on left vs. right brain of Christianity
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
The Wager; Blaise Pascal
The Strangest Story in the World; G.K. Chesterton
A Practical View of Real Christianity; William Wilberforce
God’s Grandeur: Gerard Manley Hopkins selection of poems; Gerard Manley Hopkins
Related Conversations:
A World Transformed with Tom Holland
The Strangest Story in the World: G.K. Chesterton and the Incarnation with Dale Ahlquist
Truth and Trust with Francis Collins
Faith in an Empirical World with Ard Louis and Tremper Longman
We were made for relationship — to be seen, loved, known, and committed to others. And yet we increasingly find ourselves, in the words of sociologist Jonathan Haidt, “disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past.”
On our podcast Haidt and bestselling author Andy Crouch pair up to explore how the technology era has seduced us with a false vision of human flourishing—and how each of us can fight back, and restore true community:
“A person is a heart, soul, mind, strength, complex designed for love. And one of the really damaging things about our technology is very little of our technology develops all four of those qualities.” - Andy CrouchWe hope you enjoy this conversation about the seismic effects technology has had on our personal relationships, civic institutions, and even democratic foundations — and how we might approach rethinking our technologies and reclaiming human connection.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2022. Watch the full video of the conversation here. Learn more about Jonathan Haidt and Andy Crouch.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt
The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt
Culture Making, by Andy Crouch
Playing God, by Andy Crouch
Strong and Weak, by Andy Crouch
The TechWise Family, by Andy Crouch
My TechWise Life, by Amy and Andy Crouch
The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, by Andy Crouch
Ernest Hemingway
Francis Bacon
Howard Hotson
Greg Lukianoff
Wolfram Schultz
The Sacred Canopy, by Peter L. Berger
Epictetus
Marcus Aurelius
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Brave New World, by Alduous Huxley
Bulletins from Immortality: Poems by Emily Dickinson
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell
The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt
City of God, by St. Augustine of Hippo
Children of Light and Children of Darkness by Reinhold Niebuhr
On Happiness, by Thomas Aquinas
Related Conversations:
Rebuilding our Common Life with Yuval Levin
The Challenge of Christian Nationalism with Mark Noll and Vincent Bacote
The Decadent Society with Ross Douthat
Science, Faith, Trust and Truth with Francis Collins
Beyond Ideology with Peter Kreeft and Eugene Rivers
Justice, Mercy, and Overcoming Racial Division with Claude Alexander and Mac Pier
Healing a Divided Culture with Arthur Brooks
After Babel with Andy Crouch and Johnathan Haidt
Trust, Truth, and The Knowledge Crisis with Bonnie Kristian
Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang & Curt Thompson
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help...
US foreign aid is unexpectedly in the news in 2025 as never before. What do Christians need to know, to help us be part of the dialogue?
America's history of foreign aid dates back at least to the Marshall Plan that followed World War II. Many Christians have been involved. How have these believers thought about the appropriate roles of government and of faith-based institutions? What has the US been doing, with what impact? And what is the situation on the ground now?
Three believers knowledgeable about this work join us for this episode to illustrate the scope of how faith-based foreign aid has impacted regions worldwide, share their perspectives on what a Christ-like spirit looks like in this field, and discuss where they see aid is most needed—now more than ever.
"Jesus calls on us to help the poor, your neighbor, the stranger, the sick, the shunned, the scorned, the stigmatized. Think of Jesus embracing those in poverty, prostitution, leprosy ... the US ... is not a savior. That’s Jesus’s job. But it can be an enabler of human flourishing so that people can survive and thrive." — Mark LagonThis podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from April 2025. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Related Conversations:
Abraham Kuyper’s Sphere Sovereignty with Vincent Bacote
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society.
As we emerge from the Lenten season, freshly renewed by the triumph of the Resurrection, beauty and wonder are particularly present for Christians. In this episode, author and songwriter Andrew Peterson shares his insights about the importance of location and living responsibly and attentively in whatever specific place you inhabit. He discusses how deeper attentiveness to the beauty around us can awaken us to wisdom and wonder.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from December 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Andrew Peterson.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The God of the Garden, by Andrew Peterson
Tim Mackey, The Bible Project’s Tree of Life podcast series
Jaber Crow, by Wendell Berry
William Wordsworth
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler
Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, Eric O. Jacobsen
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
Rich Mullins
10 Resolutions for Mental Health, Clyde Kilby
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Related Conversations:
Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Throughout Lent, we've been releasing weekly episodes focused on spiritual practices.
In the final episode of the series, this Holy Week we're considering the discipline of waiting: how we can prepare ourselves to receive good news.
Our guide today is N.T. Wright, the Anglican Bishop and New Testament scholar. He describes how Jesus invited his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story of waiting, the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment, and its meaning for us in this in-between time of preparation to receive good news:
"The ultimate life after death is not a platonic disembodied immortality, but resurrection life in God‘s new creation. And that new world began when Jesus came out of the tomb on Easter morning. That’s the good news. Something happened then as a result of which the world is a different place. And we are summoned, not just to enjoy its benefits, but to take up our own vocations as new creation people, as spirit-filled and spirit-led Jesus followers, bringing his kingdom into reality in our world."
We hope that this conversation will help you as you wait and prepare to receive this good news.
The podcast is drawn from an evening conversation we hosted back in 2016. You can find our shownotes and much more at ttf.org.
Thank you for journeying with us through Lent.
Learn more about N.T. Wright.
Watch The Good News and the Good Life, with N.T. Wright and Richard Hayes.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Who is this Man? by John Ortberg
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey
The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge
Related Conversations:
Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre
Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton
On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig
The Habit Podcast, Episode 26: Tish Harrison Warren with Doug McKelvey
The Spiritual Practice of Remembering with Margaret Bendroth
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.
Throughout the season of Lent, we're releasing weekly episodes focused on spiritual practices.
If at the center of reality is a God whose love is a generative, creative force, how do humans made in God’s image begin to reflect this beauty and love in a world rent by brokenness and ugliness?
As Makoto Fujimura argues on our latest podcast, it’s in the act of making that we are able to experience the depth of God’s being and grace, and to realize an integral part of our humanity:
“Love, by definition, is something that goes way outside of utilitarian values and efficiencies and industrial bottom lines. It has to…and when we love, I think we make. That's just the way we are made, and we respond to that making. So we make, and then when we receive that making, we make again.”Artistry and creativity are not just formative, but even liturgical in that they shape our understanding of, orientation towards, and love for, both the great creator and his creation.
We hope you’re encouraged in your making this Lenten season that the God who created you in his image delights in your delight.
If this podcast inspires you, and you’re so inclined, we’d love to see what you create, be that a painting, a meal, a poem, or some other loving, artistic expression. Feel free to share it with us by tagging us on your favorite social platform.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2021. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Makoto Fujimura.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Art + Faith: A Theology of Making, by Makoto Fujimura
William Blake
Vincent Van Gogh
N.T. Wright
Esther Meek
Jaques Pépin
Bruce Herman
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Gift, by Lewis Hyde
Amanda Goldman
T. S. Eliot
Calvin Silve
David Brooks
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Babette's Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot
Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Related Conversations:
A New Year With The Word with Malcolm Guite
Music, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi Floyd
Pursuing Humility with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn
Reading as a Spiritual Practice with Jessica Hooten Wilson
Walking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark Buchanan
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society.
Throughout the season of Lent, we're releasing weekly episodes focused on spiritual practices.
We live in an age of speed and overwhelm, where we often feel we are expected to do more, move faster, work harder, brush past boundaries and limits, and shave margins. When we inevitably fail to meet all demands, we are left feeling not only exhausted, but often diminished.
"Part of what you start to see is ... our limits ... is actually what fosters our relationship with God, with others, even with the earth ... it's the stuff of life."
But what if, instead of seeing our limitations as an impediment, we could learn to view them as a blessing, even a gift? In You’re Only Human, theologian and scholar Kelly Kapic provides a theologically grounded approach to understanding and receiving the gift of our human finitude.
He offers us a way to find joy and relief in our incarnational limits and use them to foster greater freedom, spiritual growth, and deeper community.
This podcast is drawn from our Online Conversation from December 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Kelly Kapic.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
You’re Only Human, by Kelly Kapic
Embodied Hope, by Kelly Kapic
The God Who Gives, by Kelly Kapic
The Devoted Life, by Kelly Kapic
Becoming Whole, by Kelly Kapic
Wendell Berry
The Sabbath, by Abram Joshua Heschel
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Related Conversations:
Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson
Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith
Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Pursuing Humility, with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn
Throughout the season of Lent, we're releasing weekly episodes focused on spiritual practices.
In an age when self-promotion is often celebrated as a sign of leadership and strength, humility may seem a lost virtue. In his work Learning Humility, theologian Richard Foster argues that humility is actually strength, releasing us from a preoccupation with self, and allowing us to live a life of freedom:
May Foster’s call to humility, and pastor and writer Brenda Quinn’s practical insights on living it out in leadership and community, inspire you this Lenten season to contemplate the humility of Jesus and the way of the cross.
This podcast is an edited version of a conversation recorded in 2022. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Learning Humility, by Richard Foster
Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster
Streams of Living Water, by Richard Foster
Sanctuary of the Soul, by Richard Foster
The Life With God Bible, contributed to by Richard Foster
C.S. Lewis
Timothy Keller
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Who Stands Fast, featuring Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Babette's Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Wrestling with God, by Simone Weil
Related Conversations:
A New Year With The Word with Malcolm Guite
Music, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi Floyd
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Throughout the season of Lent, we'll be releasing weekly episodes focused on themes of reflection, prayer, and contemplation. As you listen to this episode, we invite you to take a moment to slow down, quiet your heart, and hear what God may be saying to you.
What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but as a spiritual practice that deepens our faith?
In her book, Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Jessica Hooten Wilson explores how Christian thinkers—including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers—approached the act of reading.
She argues that reading deeply and well can not only open a portal to a broader imagination, but is akin to acquiring travel supplies for the good life:
“What I'm hoping to see more of is that the church becomes again those people of the book that really try to make others belong and strive for a deeper connection, versus the party atmosphere that our world always is tempting us to do.”We hope you’re encouraged this Lenten season as you learn to read as a spiritual practice, finding grace and wisdom for living well along the way.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2023. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Jessica Hooten Wilson.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Learning the Good Life: Wisdom from the Great Hearts and Minds That Came Before, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Giving the Devil His Due, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice,, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Walker Percy
In the first episode of our weekly Lenten series, we invite you to take a moment to slow down, quiet your heart, and hear what God may be saying to you. Throughout the season of Lent, we'll be releasing weekly episodes focused on themes of reflection, prayer, and contemplation.
On March 19, 2021 we were delighted to host Christian author, leader, and teacher, Ruth Haley Barton. Barton is founding President/CEO of the Transforming Center, a ministry dedicated to strengthening the souls of Christian leaders and the congregations and organizations they serve. Ruth is the author of numerous books and resources on the spiritual life, including Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Sacred Rhythms. She reflects regularly on spirituality and leadership in her blog, Beyond Words, and on her podcast Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.
We hope you enjoy this conversation around her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. Our attention, Barton believes, has become a commodity that we must protect if we are to avoid being swept away by our distracted age. She invites listeners to engage in these ancient biblical practices to find the rest for our souls that Jesus promises. In this Lenten season, we hope this will inspire you to pursue God’s transforming presence in new ways and contemplatively sit in solitude and silence with the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
Learn more about Ruth Haley Barton.
Watch the full Online Conversation and read the transcript from March 19, 2021.
Related reading:
A Shocking Lack of Solitude, Cherie Harder
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Blaise Pascal
John Milton
C.S. Lewis
Richard Rohr
Dallas Willard
Henry Nouwen
Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Julian of Norwich
Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence, by Ruth Haley Barton
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Confessions | A Trinity Forum Reading by St. Augustine, introduced by James K.A. Smith.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | A Trinity Forum Reading by Annie Dillard, introduced by Tish Harrison Warren.
Devotions | A Trinity Forum Reading by John Donne, introduced and paraphrased by Philip Yancey.
The Long Loneliness | A Trinity Forum Reading by Dorothy Day, introduced by Anne and David Brooks.
Wrestling with God | A Trinity Forum Reading by Simone Weil, introduced by Alonzo McDonald.
The Pilgrim's Progress | A Trinity Forum Reading by John Bunyan, introduced by Alonzo McDonald.
How Christianity Remade the World
In the context of the pagan classical world, the Christian faith was a shocking, even unfathomable inversion of the values systems and structures of the time. In that embattled context, its explosive growth was unimaginable. Today, however, Christianity is often considered boring or backwards.
How might we better discern and understand the radicalism of Christianity’s origins, its impact through the centuries, and its enduring formational power?
Historian Tom Holland’s landmark book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, calls attention to these puzzles and paradoxes:
”Dominion was written as an attempt to stress test my hunch that Christianity really had been the most seismic and revolutionary development, not just really in the history of the West, but probably globally. And I'm relieved to say that I was satisfied that it had been what I was setting out to show that it had been.” - Tom HollandWe trust this conversation will fire your imagination anew, and help you see with new eyes how the inverted values and priorities of God’s kingdom continue to disrupt the patterns of the world, and shape our cultural assumptions.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation recorded in February, 2025. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Tom Holland.
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Episode Outline
00:00 Introduction to Dominion and Tom Holland
03:09 Tom Holland's Journey to Writing Dominion
03:48 The Alien World of Classical Antiquity
06:32 The Impact of Christianity on Western Civilization
07:33 The Crucifixion and its Historical Significance
10:42 The Uncanny Character of Jesus
13:13 Early Christian Persecution and Martyrdom
16:59 Paul's Radical Teachings and their Legacy
21:37 The Doctrine of Original Sin and Human Dignity
27:51 Christianity's Influence on Modern Politics
32:17 Tom Holland's Personal Reflections on Christianity
36:38 Viewer Questions on American Politics and Christianity’s Influence on the Family, Modern Politics, and More
49:50 Tom’s Closing Thoughts and White Tiger, by Poet RS Thomas
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Rest is History (podcast)
The Histories by Herodotus, translation by Tom Holland
Rubicon, Millennium, Persian Fire, Pax, Dominion, by Tom Holland
The City of God, by St. Augustine of Hippo
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
City of God, by St. Augustine of Hippo
The Strangest Story in the World, by GK Chesterton
Why God Became Man, by Anselm of Canterbury
A Practical View of Real Christianity, by William Wilberforce
Suffering, Wayfaring & Hope with Curt Thompson and Warren Kinghorn
Anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges are surging among both young and old. By some estimates, more than one in five American adults struggle with some form of mental illness each year. There are few untouched – either directly or through loved ones – with the suffering that attends such struggles. What does faith offer those in the midst of such challenges?
Warren Kinghorn and Curt Thompson, both practicing Christian psychiatrists, join our podcast to help explore these questions.
Warren’s book, Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care, draws from the theology of Thomas Aquinas as well as the science of today. Curt’s latest book, The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, draws from the Apostle Paul’s experience to show us how we can flourish in the midst of suffering. Together, they help us to reframe our understanding of mental health care from fixing machines to accompanying fellow wayfarers on the way to the Lord’s feast:
“There's a lot of really good things about thinking about mental health care as a process of careful work to reduce symptoms. But what are we missing?“I think some of what we're missing are the stories that people bring in and the stories, not just of individuals, but of communities and cultures…Maybe they're not just internal problems where something's broken and needs to be fixed, but maybe we need to think about it in a broader and more holistic context.”
We trust this podcast will give you new language, compassion, and tools to address mental health challenges, and to wayfare alongside loved ones who may also be struggling.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation recorded in January, 2025. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Warren Kinghorn and Curt Thompson.
Episode Outline
0:00 Introduction: The Mental Health Crisis
00:51 Meet the Experts: Curt Thompson and Warren Kinghorn
03:58 The Power of Stories in Mental Health
07:13 Reframing Mental Health: From Machines to Wayfarers
15:55 The Role of Community in Healing
35:50 Q&A: Addressing Shame, Community, and Healing
55:36 The Last Word from Warren Kinghorn and Curt Thompson
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Deepest Place, by Curt Thompson
Wayfaring, by Warren Kinghorn
St. Thomas Aquinas
Anatomy of the Soul, by Curt Thompson
The Soul of Shame, by Curt Thompson
The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community, by Curt Thompson
Thompson
Wendell Berry
John C. Polanyi
Julianne Holt-Lunstad
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Happiness, St. Thomas Aquinas
Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl,
Confessions, by St. Augustine
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
Related Conversations:
The Soul of Desire with Curt Thompson
Hope and Healing in Hard Times with Curt Thompson
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
The Strangest Story in the World: G.K. Chesterton & the Incarnation
C.S. Lewis famously credited G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man as a key step in his turn from atheism to Christian faith. The book audaciously surveyed the broad sweep of human history, then zeroed in on the Incarnation of Christ. How, Chesterton asked, could such a mysterious and startling event come to be known as the center point of history? And how did this intellectual mystic offer a fresh path into this story for so many?
In this episode, we dive into one of Chesterton’s greatest works and explore the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus Christ alongside Dale Ahlquist, one of the world’s leading experts on G.K. Chesterton:
“Philosophy and religion come together for the first time when Jesus comes. Why is that so strange? Because the spiritual life and the intellectual life have finally run into each other in a big way. And how does it come? It comes in the most unexpected way possible.”
Our 100th podcast episode illustrates what we do here at the Trinity Forum: keeping the Christian intellectual tradition alive, while also nurturing new growth – for our own time, and for future generations.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation recorded in 2024. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Dale Ahlquist.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton
C.S. Lewis
Evelyn Waugh
G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, by Dale Ahlquist
Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man: A Guide to G.K. Chesterton’s Masterpiece, by Dale Ahlquist
George MacDonald
C.S. Lewis
Charles Dickens
William Shakespeare
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Benedict Option, by Rod Dreher
Alan Jacobs
H.G. Wells
Roger Kipling
George Bernard Shaw
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
The Strangest Story in the World, by G.K. Chesterton
Bright Evening Star’, by Madeleine L’Engle
Babbette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen
The Gift of the Magi & Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen, by O. Henry
Why God Became Man, by Anselm
The Spirit of the Imagination: Selections from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with an introduction by Malcolm Guite
Handel's Messiah
The Oracle of the Dog, by G.K. Chesterton
The Golden Key, by George McDonald
Related Conversations:
Waiting on the Word with Malcolm Guite
Advent: The Season of Hope, with Tish Harrison Warren
Renewing the Joy of Advent, with Hannah Anderson
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
